melty future
by The Resurrection 3D
Summary: It's hard out here for a lost time traveler and a bunch of mutant freaks.


A collection of prompt fills for the 3-sentence Fic-a-Thon over on dreamwidth; originally intended to do a lot more, but I decided to go ahead and post what I have. These are arranged into a very loose story, and some have been edited to be more than three sentences, sue me. Quotations are from Samuel Beckett's "texts for nothing #4."

Warning: minor violence, some cursing, and mentions of drinking.

XXXX

i.

The light always goes out during a storm.

He could be lying to us / Tom, why would he lie about that / Wait what if he's making the power go out just to torture us / Matt, stop / No he's onto something / BOTH of you stop / BOTH of US? / Hey guys / Yes, BOTH of YOU / We're the same person / Oh god what if he's trying to make us go crazy / Hey guys - / No, we're like if Frankenstein was made up of a bunch of annoying dumb asses instead of just corpses / What if he put drugs in our food and lights aren't even off right now / You know that includes you, right / Uhh guys - / No, Tom, I didn't know that, thank you for your truly enlightening commentary / what if the drugs start making us think we've got bugs in our eyes / holy shit GUYS / I'M TOO PRETTY TO BE FULLY EYELESS / You know patronizing me isn't an argument / WILL YOU ALL SHUT THE _FUCK_ UP!

Only then can they hear the soft crying of Scribble, curled up against their side.

ii.

Around the 260th time Creator makes them watch the same episode of Barney and throws away the key onto the table just visible in the edge of the window in the door, Scribble Tom snaps.

He knocks over the cart on which the TV stands, gets his foot caught on jagged glass as he kicks in the screen, as the other Rejects watch with curiosity or what they hope reads as mild disinterest— "What was that for?" Realistic asks; "He puts that on for you."

Scribble Tom practically screams in frustration, "I'm older than all of you!"

iii.

Tomatoredd, being by far the largest and strongest, is the to pin their Creator's face to the ground as Torm holds a shard of TV screen to his throat.

Realistic crosses his arms in triumph; Scribble lazily spins the key ring around on his finger.

"Honestly, we don't know why we didn't think of this sooner," Torm says, watching as a few pearls of blood bubble along the glass edge. The rest shrug.

iv.

Their first night out, the sky is afire.

Scribble clings trembling to their leg, Realistic their other, and Torm their arm – only the jacket sleeve, though, only a pinch.

After a full minute's worth of debate, Tomatoredd walks everyone down to the end of the driveway (the two anchors still on them), debates another minute before taking a vote of pointer fingers in a preferred direction, and then off they go, following the strange runes on the roadside and the bursts of colorful fire in the sky.

_V._

They have to hold Scribble to their chest so that he doesn't tear the whole place apart — two voices in goading laughter / I'm not paying for it / oh, let him have his — HE FUCKING BIT ME / ME / US.

Scribbles' already raced off into the sea of lights and overpriced plastic, dozens of normal eyes shifting onto them — flick em off / yeah I'm with Tom / cola / fuck Christmas / mirrors / porn / I hope he hasn't messed up my — wordswordsthoughtscrisscrossingtooloud people staring make them —

"Anything you wanna fucking say?" four voices ask, to which no one replies.

vi.

"You know," Scribble clicks his tongue, "not to pull the whole 'my big brother is gonna beat you up' card but" – he whistles, and the ground shakes, a dark shadow falling across Scribble and the trio of high schoolers.

Torm smashes his bat into a trashcan, sending it flying into one of their stomachs; "Don't forget me!"

It's probably not the most effective way of robbing people, Tomatoredd always thinks with a smile and a crack of their knuckles, but man is it fun.

vii.

Realistic can't sing on key to save his life.

Torm didn't know how fast they all could run, how far all their eyes could travel until the other Rejects seemed to all sense who is about to make some smart fuckin' comment and instantly crowd him, shoving people out of chairs, planting feet on the table and leering with big, wolfish smiles.

Scribble cuts right to the point; smashes the guy's face into his own plate of spaghetti, shouting over the pulse of pop music, "Oh, I love this song!"

viii.

Sometimes Torm's hearts pound in sync, a war drum in his chest – ba dum, ba dum.

Realistic and Scribble like to play doctor, cover each other in marker stiches and place their ears on each other's chest, listening to their singular heartbeats – ba dum, ba dum.

Alone in the dark, Tomatoredd hugs themselves, listens to their four heartbeats in their ears: we are here, we are here, we are here.

ix.

The man in the black coat taps furiously on his wrist, but it only beeps louder and louder, until it breaks with a cloud of springs and dust and wires.

He curses under his breath, to which Scribble replies, "At least we're stuck in here together."

The man grimaces and says, "Yeah, I'm just so excited for _Donner Party 2: Electric Boogaloo."_

x.

Scribble has to bury his laughter as this future Edd constantly interjects his reading with _what the hell is he on about_s, until finally he finds the rhythm, nodding along as he reads the ending: "_That's where I'd go, if I could go, that's who I'd be, if I could be_. Well, I'll pretend to know what any of that meant." He tosses the small booklet across the floor.

"I think I know what it means," to which the future Edd raises an eyebrow, so Scribble continues: "He thinks he should be happy living regular life, but books remind him that real life's actually really boring."

The future Edd peruses his lips. "Can't really relate; regular life has always been too much for me – but it's better than nothing, I suppose," to which Scribble has to nod. Better to be a freak than to never have any control over anybody at all.

xi.

The future Edd tosses off the broken watch, allowing it to skid across the floor to Scribble; "Should've expected Red to build another piece of useless junk."

Scribble flips through its intestines like he's pulling money out of Creator's wallet, until —"Aha!"

Edd raises a brow, to which Scribbles responds by taking out a small, blinking green chip. "Do you know what that is?" he asks.

The kid widens his eyes; that same plastic, stupid look Matt would always give. "No? How am I supposed to know, I asked you!"

"Oh, well _pardon_ me," Edd replies, a hand to his chest. "I forgot for a second that you were the safety scissors type."

xii.

"Sorry we hung up on you, dad."

"Dad? When did I become 'Dad'?"

"When you brought Scribble home and bought us all McDonald's so we'd all stop crying."

xiii.

"_That's where I'd go, if I could go,"_ Scribble whispers, like it's a secret, a sigh. "_That's who I'd be, if I could be."_

"If you could be?" Tomatoredd asks— be beautiful/ world leader / smart / handsome / good at drawing / at film making / at something — "What do you mean?"

Scribble shrugs, "I mean, I dunno — it just feels we're all still waiting for our life to start, isn't it?"

Dad grunts, yanking away some of the covers Scribble has stolen. "If you wanna go back to mini golf, all you have to do is ask."

ivx.

The world has boiled down to the burn of vodka down his throat and the roar of chanting in his ears.

Dad is joining him, downing and discarding liter bottles of coke almost as fast as Torm and Scribble can finish their vodka.

When the winner is called, Tomatoredd holds Dad's arm up, right as Scribble yells in woe and Torm, unable to see for his own tears, falls to his knees.

xv.

Scribble watches the birds outside his window in their new quaint little house, feeling some implacable expansion in his chest, as though a door is being opened.

The bird falls— it is a baby learning how to fly, after all, and Scribble jumps, fingernails digging deep ruts into the wood of the windowsill, only relaxing once he sees the mama bird swoop down and check for injuries.

Scribbles realizes what he's feeling with a smile: bitter, burning, jealousy.

xvi.

There are always silver linings, so Scribble Tom thinks: being bullied becomes money for dinner; being the smallest becomes being the fastest, the hardest to get a hold of; being born in a machine and then tossed in the trash becomes –

Becomes…

Scribble stretches himself in their mattress nest they call a bed, a foot on Realistic and Dad's backs, a hand on Torm's wrist, an ear flat against Tomatoredd's chest: we are here, we are here, we are family.


End file.
